Webmote: control anything with web-based remote

We’ve seen a lot of projects that let you control all of your devices from a smartphone. But this universal web-based remote control system looks like the most versatile we’ve seen yet. The project is called Webmote as the controls are served up as a web interface so that you’re not limited to say an Android device. The UI can be customized by choosing what buttons you will use and where to place them on the display. You can get a good feel for this by viewing this G+ album. Setup is made a bit easier thanks to an add-on system that has predefined layouts for common things like controlling XBMC.

The hardware seen above is the business end of Webmote. It’s an Arduino with an IR receiver, IR LED, and an XBee module. For your common home entertainment devices you can teach the system your codes using the IR receiver. The IR LED is used to transmit those codes back, and the Xbee gives you the ability to control X10 (home automation) devices. Right now the setup requires the hardware be connected to a server via USB, but it shouldn’t be hard to set up some type of wireless alternative.

I haven’t gotten around to posting the code yet, but I did something kinda similar for multiple comcast receivers using standard IR emitters. Right now the web interface talks to the device over USB, but I’ll be throwing a $10 bluetooth module on it soon to give it a little freedom. It works pretty well. You can walk around to TV’s in a facility and change the channels with a tablet over wifi.

I’ve been trying to do something similar but using the RaspberryPi. I essentially just want it to be able to listen to commands on the receiver, so it can be “taught” like a regular universal remote and then have it blaster them back out on an attached infrared LED.

I’ve done something similar using an async labs wishield clone for wifi connectivity. Serving pages from the arduino was a BAD idea and full of problems. I eventually settled on a similar approach with a server handling the web based interface and then handing off instructions to the arduino over a socket connection. That setup wouldn’t be too hard to adapt to this. I think I’ve found myself a xmas break project, thanks HAD!…

rue_mohr – I did integrate some LIRC support although I have been meaning to incorporate more. At the moment, after you record at least one command then you can search LIRC for the rest of the commands. Naturally, the more commands recorded the better the match. I use it for my TV for instance and it works pretty well and saves me the work of recording tons of commands. What I don’t have that would be nice, is an export to LIRC functionality, something I have been thinking about incorporating for a while. Any other suggestions?